Reverse link clear channels can now be determined. Furthermore, mobile telephones can now report the forward noise levels of specific channels from a mobile assisted channel allocation ("MACA") list. However, the accurate and efficient determination of adequate serving voice channels, based on these reports, is a problem that has not yet been resolved.
Current channel allocation techniques compare MACA channel measurements to a fixed threshold in order to determine clear voice channels on the forward path. This approach, in addition to being restricted to only adaptive channel allocation ("ACA") calls, is not effective for all of these calls in a cell, because each call has different minimum noise level requirements. A fixed threshold would therefore be restrictive, by disqualifying many voice channels that would have otherwise served the calls with adequate carrier over interference power ratio ("C/I") levels. Furthermore, this approach simply determines pass/fail conditions for the MACA channels, instead of prioritizing them.